Page 122 of As the Rain Falls
What if she knew?
But no, she couldn’t have figured it out. I kept to myself. I hid it well. My best friend thinks I’m just sad and depressed because of a boy, for fuck’s sake. There’s no way in hell Lucia Evans could’ve ever known about my brother raping me back when she was alive. It doesn’t make any sense to me.
Kayla’s face softens. Her full lips, now pressed together, are turning into a thin line.
“Beckett is grieving, Cassie. He must be feeling really sad about losing his sister; you shouldn’t take everything he says seriously. Remember when I lost my uncle? Remember how I kept trying to find reasons to explain why he’d get behind the wheel? That was just grief talking.”
“Okay, but it doesn’t make it any less wrong!” I snap, not liking the turn this conversation is taking. Kayla should be onmyside. “You really think it’s okay for Lucia to be remembered this way? What if this was me? What if this was you?”
“Of course, it doesn’t,” she breathes out, her features hardening with confusion. “God, I didn’t mean it like that. I take it back, I promise I didn’t mean anything other than this probably just being just another case of bullying.”
I can’t fully believe her words, because as far as I know, no one could ever bully a girl like Lucia. It’d even be easier to believe that she wrote those words herself, which still would’ve been a crazy thing to do.
“But how… how can they say this about her?”
“I don’t know.” Kayla shakes her head, looking troubled. “I’m really sorry.”
Her hands press against my cheeks, cupping the sides of my face. It’s a kind gesture, something we’ve done to each other since we were little kids for comfort.But I don’t feel comforted now.I feel cold.I feel cold and I’m crying.
“Cassie.” She catches one of my tears with her thumb. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I’m not hurt.” I blink hard, but the tears keep coming. She takes me by the hand, pulling me outside of the bathroom stall. My fingers intertwine with hers.“I’m okay.”
But she’s still not seeing it.
Kayla is not evenlooking.
“No, you’re not. Come here,” she whispers and hugs me tightly, desperate to comfort me. I let her hold me because I don’t know what else to do. “I’m so sorry. I just didn’t know you felt this strongly about her.”
“I…”
“Shh. It’s okay, Cassie.”
But it’s not. It’s not—
“It’s not fair!” I choke out. “Kayla, it’s not fair!”
I’ve spent years fighting these words, pretending like they didn’t matter or didn’t hurt. Someone else wrote them down like it was nothing. Like it waseasy. They picked up the pieces that I so carefully keep hidden from the world and tossed it all up in the air.
Nathaniel Rivera is a rapist.
Then, I hear it. I hear that voice that pulls towards somewhere dark and cold in my mind. Somewhere I can’t come back from alone at all. It’s him. He won’t ever let me go.
If you tell anyone, I’ll fucking kill you.I’ll kill you, and I’ll kill them, too. I swear to God, Cassandra.It’ll happen so fast you won’t even see it coming.
TEXT CHAINS BETWEEN FRIENDS: PART EIGHT
NOVEMBER, 2016
Cassandra: becky :(
Beckett: What’s up?
Cassandra: can you call me?
do you like to go on facetime?
Beckett: I do
